


Sayaka’s Fall into Despair

by StoryGirl555



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Angst, Despair, F/M, Hope
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26301529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoryGirl555/pseuds/StoryGirl555
Summary: After watching the video Monokuma showed Sayaka, she felt like it was time for her to kill someone. And that someone was Leon.But she couldn’t do it, because it might break Makoto’s heart.The next morning however, would make Sayaka fall into despair.
Relationships: Maizono Sayaka/Naegi Makoto
Comments: 8
Kudos: 44





	Sayaka’s Fall into Despair

Sayaka honestly felt conflicted as she headed to the cafeteria the next morning. Part of her felt immense guilt for what she had attempted to do. She knew that it would stay with her for the rest of her life, and that she’d never be able to apologize enough to Naegi. Sayaka… knew she was a terrible person, and that she didn’t deserve his forgiveness. But as she thought about it, it was largely because of his influence that she felt… relieved that nothing happened last night. Whether Leon was too scared or paranoid, or if he was just playing it safe, Sayaka didn’t care. Whatever the case, Sayaka didn’t kill anyone, and… and she’d be spending the foreseeable future throwing herself at Naegi’s feet, his mercy, hoping he could someday see her as a friend again… 

Because he meant so much to her. 

The longer she lied in wait last night and Leon didn’t come, the more she realized what a fool she was. Murdering Leon would’ve gotten her out of this hellhole, but she would’ve just been using Naegi just like how she stepped on so many others to get to where she was as a Pop Idol. The Ultimate Pop Idol. Naegi really wasn’t like everyone else… No matter how much she tried to kill her heart and muster up the courage to take a life, there was always that niggling doubt in the back of her head. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, and she wonders if she would’ve been able to go through with it, had Leon shown up.   
  
...But as much as Sayaka was immensely relieved nothing happened, part of her was… confused. She wouldn’t be able to know if Leon had caught on to her murder attempt, or if another tragedy took place. Everyone had been upset when they watched the videos, and if she had been desperate enough to commit murder…   
  
It was for that reason that Sayaka almost went to check on Makoto before coming to the cafeteria. She was concerned for her friend – her unwitting savior – though in the end, she decided to not draw suspicion to herself as she saw Kiyotaka wandering the hall, attempting to start awakening the late-risers. In the end, she just went directly to the cafeteria and waited for their morning meeting, anxious all the while to see Naegi. 

Time passed, and the other students slowly trickled in. Fujisaki, Aoi, Sakura… Mondo, Junko, Yamada… Kirigiri, Celes, Leon, Touko, and Yasuhiro… The only ones missing were Kiyotaka, Togami, and Naegi. Sayaka had a feeling Kiyotaka was just trying to get Togami to come to breakfast, but Naegi… 

The pop sensation bit her lower lip and tried to hide her worry. Naegi was usually one of the “early risers”, like her. If he overslept, that was okay… But after what she attempted to do last night, a seed of doubt and worry was sown into her heart. 

At last, Kiyotaka marched in with an irritated-looking Togami. Unfortunately, there appeared to be no sign of Naegi with them.

“Yo, Togami! You seen Naegi around?” Mondo asked the heir, rather than the prefect who had been making sure they all get to breakfast.

“Like I’d know where he is.” Togami scoffed. He nudged his head toward the prefect. “I came directly here with this idiot.”

Kiyotaka frowned and his brow furrowed, crossing his arms. “It is unlike Makoto to not be here yet… From what I’ve seen, he has practiced good study habits, arriving on time for our morning meetings!”

Junko rolled her eyes. “Weren’t you the one chewing him out for being late to the entrance hall on our first day.” The model examined her nails dully.

“… I admit I should not have judged a book by its cover!” Kiyotaka calmly confessed. 

Yamada rubbed his chin. “Has he forgotten… our breakfast oath?” 

Kirigiri muttered something, but Sayaka didn’t quite hear her. The seed of apprehension that took root in her heart… had begun to sprout. There was no resisting it anymore – Sayaka had to know if he was okay. Suspicions be damned, last night was far from “normal”, and she knew it.

“I… I’m gonna go check on him. I-I’m his assistant, after all!” Sayaka chirped with false cheer before darting out of the dining hall, not waiting for anyone’s consent. If anyone protested, she didn’t hear them either. Right now, her heart was thundering in her ears as she ran down the hall – sliding to a stop as she finally noticed something. 

The nameplates. They were on their correct doors. Sayaka knew for a fact that she had switched them. So why…?

Desperately dismissing the question as soon as it had entered her mind, Sayaka sprang for her door and twisted the handle, finding it to be unlocked. She threw open the door and rushed into the room.

“Naegi?!” The idol looked around frantically. No one was on the bed. The room was still as tidy as she had left it… There was one minor difference, though. 

The bathroom door was ajar. 

Sayaka didn’t hesitate, fear and trepidation having completely taken over her heart. Naegi should have heard her if he was in there, and the only way he wouldn’t have heard her was if he was knocked out… or…

A lump formed in her throat. The idol squeezed her eyes shut tight, opened the door so she could peer inside… and opened her eyes. 

She should have known… from the moment she didn’t see him in the hall when she got up, to all that time waiting in the cafeteria… 

There was no hope. Not anymore. 

Hot, fat tears spilled from her eyes, and Sayaka sank to her knees, unable to tear her eyes away. Lying there propped up against the wall in a pool of blood, his own blood, a knife sticking out of his chest, his pupils dilated, and his skin hideously pale… was Makoto Naegi. There was no point in checking for a pulse. His chest wasn’t rising and falling – the boy’s whole body was deathly still, and his face had gone slack…

Makoto Naegi was dead. The boy who unwittingly changed her mind about committing murder… the young man who had wanted to do nothing but help people… help her… He was gone. And right away, Sayaka knew that Naegi didn’t end his life with his own two hands. Naegi… wasn’t… like that…

Sayaka choked back a sob before wailing loudly. So loud, that she unintentionally alerted the others to the situation, having left her bedroom door wide open. Part of her didn’t really care, though… She’d lost all feeling. She was hurting. She felt more pain than she had in her entire life… Even after watching that video with something happening to her friends… This was somehow still worse. With the video, she didn’t know if her friends were dead, or if they were just badly hurt. Here, in this moment… there was no room for doubt. No room to hope that she could apply CPR. Naegi had lost too much blood, and who knew just how long it’d been since he’d passed on? 

Misery, despair, guilt… all of it gnawed away at her, and Sayaka subconsciously crawled forward and took ahold of Naegi’s blood-soaked hoodie in her hands. She didn’t know what she was doing by this point, and she wasn’t able to register that the others had come to check on her, and were caught up in their own shock and horror.   
  
“Come back… Naegi… Please…” The Pop Idol cried barely above a whisper. He had to… He needed to come back…! There was so many things left unsaid. She didn’t care how her clothes were getting blood all over them. She only started caring when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder, pulling her away from the brunet. “L-Let me go…!” 

“I’m sorry, Sayaka… But it’s too late.” Sakura Oogami grimaced as she quite easily resisted Sayaka’s attempts to escape her grip. She was just as distraught as the rest of them, but she wasn’t the Ultimate Fighter for nothing. Grimly, she reaffirmed, “We can’t bring him back.”

That got the idol’s tear-stained eyes to snap up at her. She glared in hostility before thrashing about even harder.

“We can…! We have to! Naegi wasn’t supposed to die!” 

There was a harsh slap that cut through everyone’s horrified reactions. Sayaka blinked back even more tears as she glared at the model that had been brazen enough to do it. There was something different about Junko’s presence, though. Gone was that chipper, almost lazy supermodel. In her place was a scowling, seething, absolutely furious woman that was glaring at Sayaka, daring her to utter another word.

Needless to say, the idol didn’t take the model up on her “challenge”.  
  
“That’s enough!” Junko barked. “Just think for a damn moment, would ya? Do you seriously think Naegi would want you to be mourning mindlessly like this?! No way in hell. I might not have known him for long, but he seemed like a really standup guy. And standup guys like him don’t leave you to wallow in misery!”

Sayaka hung her head, looking away from Junko. She hated admitting Junko was even remotely right… When she fled after watching her video, it was him who went running after her. And again, it was him who tried so hard to encourage everybody to get along.   
  
Naegi… wouldn’t want her kneeling in his own blood, nonsensically yelling for him to come back when he couldn’t… Naegi would want her to pick herself up and keep going – because he believed in her. 

And yet… She wasn’t ready to “move on”. Sayaka wouldn’t, couldn’t acknowledge the horrible truth that Naegi was dead… That she would never see him move again. Never see him smile, or laugh, or get flustered… 

In the end, though, Sayaka slumped in Sakura’s ironclad grip. She didn’t fight anymore, but she didn’t move to stand up with the rest of them. How could she? Naegi would never be able to stand up again. He’d never get to do… so many things. Tears were still cascading down her face, but she didn’t move or do anything else. She just sat there and sobbed.

~*~

Apparently, it wasn’t enough that Makoto died. That damn bear taunted them and told them they would have no choice but to investigate Naegi’s death and decide who was the killer. If they managed to guess correctly, only the murderer would be executed. But if they guessed wrong… the rest of them would die, and the killer would walk free.

Sayaka was numb, and pretty unresponsive even as a good number of the students suspected that she killed Naegi, since he was in her room. Part of her wanted them to just guess that it was her, be wrong, and all get executed for even entertaining the notion that she would kill Naegi… In a sense, though, she had. It was her fault they had exchanged rooms. Her attempted murder plot that put Naegi in a situation where he could be killed as well. She hadn’t known he had switched the nameplates back, but that was no excuse. Maybe he was just scared that if he attempted to confront her, she would kill him… He would have had every right to be scared of her…

But still… why change the plates back? If he knew what she was planning to do, why endanger himself? Why put himself in an awkward position where her potential “victim” would be forced to talk to him instead? Just what had transpired? If he hadn’t answered the door like he promised, then they both would be alive right now. And yet… she didn’t feel like blaming him. Not when she herself had been planning to murder a man.   
  
It hurt Sayaka to have so many questions fly through her mind a mile a minute. Part of her wanted to investigate and find out if it had been Leon that committed the deed, but she was just so drained. The only people not outright accusing or doubting her were Junko, Sakura… and Kirigiri. The former two didn’t doubt or accuse her because of the scene she made, and how close she had apparently been to Naegi. Sakura confessed she was going to be open-minded about it, and vote if there was sufficient evidence it was her, but she had calmly explained that she highly doubted Sayaka had killed Naegi. Junko had told her point-blank to stay out of the way and let her investigate; the whole reason she seemed to be investigating was for Naegi, since Sayaka was too drained to do anything, and she “obviously” wasn’t the culprit, like everyone else said. 

And Kirigiri… actually seemed to piece together her attempted murder plot. She didn’t say as such in so many words, but Sayaka could guess from the questions Kyoko was asking that she was piecing it together. And at the end, she simply assured Sayaka that she was pretty sure the culprit wasn’t her. Sayaka wasn’t sure if they would find enough evidence to pin down the real culprit, but there was a small part of her that held out hope that they would… Because they couldn’t let Naegi’s killer walk free, and Sayaka would never forgive them. Sayaka’s main suspect was Leon, and she didn’t care if she was being biased in her suspicions. 

Sayaka just felt… empty. She couldn’t do much investigating in her state. When Naegi died, he took a part of her heart with her. Some assistant. Naegi was dead, and it was her fault. That’s how it was supposed to be.   
  
“I don’t know if it will be any consolation…” Kirigiri paused as she dug some folded note from her pocket. “… But he did leave this for you. Hopefully, you can gain some peace from it.”

Sayaka wiped at her eyes as she numbly accepted the note from the lavender-head.

“B-But where…? How…?”  
  
“In the drawer, under the sewing kit. He put it in a place the killer wasn’t very likely to look. I would’ve missed it myself, had I not been looking everywhere,” Kyoko confessed.

Sayaka said nothing, and opened up the note. New tears fell down her face, the more she read.  
  
“I guess I’m just being paranoid, but I wanted to be safer than sorry.. I’m so sorry if you’re reading this, Maizono. I just wanted… to help you. I broke my promise and checked out the hallway, to see if I could find your… attacker. That’s when I found out about the nameplates.

I really wanted to check in on you. But… I have a feeling you were planning to kill someone, and that you were probably planning to blame me in order to get out… If I confronted you tonight, we both would get hurt.   
  
So… I switched back the plates. Maybe you’re wondering what my plan was… To tell the truth, I just wanted to resolve things between you two, rather than let a murder happen. If you’re reading this, though… that didn’t work out. I know they wouldn’t be happy if they found out you wanted to kill them, so I’m gonna tell them a half-truth, I guess. That you did call them, but you had me take your place ‘cause it was just a prank. 

I wanna talk to you again, tomorrow. I’m writing this in case I can’t. I… Despite the evidence, I still believe in you, Maizono. Whatever was on your video, you were so scared by it that you were inconsolable. If that video drove you to murder, or to try it, I wanted to stop you. I promised I’d get you out of here, but killing someone isn’t the way to do it. There’s no way I can tell you that right now and make you believe me. 

Maybe you’re really sad and feeling betrayed… but you’re my friend, Maizono! Above all else, I want you to know that! I want everyone to get out. And right now, the only thing I can do is get in the way of this murder, and talk to you tomorrow. I promise, I haven’t told anyone else about what you did. I promise, I haven’t gone back on my word that I would get you out of here. There just has to be another way! 

If you hate me, I totally understand. I’d probably be angry, too, if I was in your shoes… But I’m not gonna let Monokuma make you something you’re not. You’re the kindest, smartest, bravest, most beautiful woman I know! And you’re the best assistant ever! I guess I am the Ultimate Luckster, huh? I’m so glad I got to know you! If you ever feel guilty about all this, don’t be. I took it upon myself to protect you, so it’s on my head.   
  
If it’s not too much… Please, try and get everyone outta there. Keep everyone together! Don’t let Monokuma win!

With love,  
Makoto Naegi”

Sayaka’s back and shoulders wracked with sobs as she clutched the note to her chest. Makoto said, thought, and felt all these things… Of course she was going to keep everyone together now, because that’s what he wanted. He believed in her, despite how she betrayed him. He was so optimistic… so she would be optimistic. 

Sayaka just wished… she could have told him how she felt…


End file.
